It's fitting that the end of this series was so much like the rest of it. You just had to see it to really believe how good it was. Let's go to the tape. It's the only way. With just over a minute left in regulation, and Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford (their best player for much of the game) on the bench for the extra attacker, this happened:

Let the record show, however, just how good Boston was in this series: they almost made it easy to forget they were playing a team that was seen for most of this shortened season as the favourite to take home the Cup.

Chicago's 24-game unbeaten streak to start the season stands as one of the most impressive of the modern era. The Bruins, on the other hand, limped into the playoffs, with everyone wondering where their firepower had gone. They were the team Jarome Iginla turned down. They did a more than admirable job at making sure that was all put to rest, buried somewhere deep behind them on the side of the road to what looked increasingly like a championship season.

Though it really was just "almost". Boston, good as they were and as close as they made this, never really pressed the Blackhawks the same way the Detroit Red Wings had. Both the Boston and Chicago benches are fresh with memories of Cup victory, but fresher still for Chicago was perhaps the memory of feeling like there were no answers to a team, and yet finding some. That, it seems now, looking back, was really the spot to have done away with the Blackhawks. They were a mess, a frustrated group of children playing a man's game – mostly from the penalty box. Once they had somehow managed to fight back, though, there were probably far fewer screws left for anyone else to turn. The LA Kings certainly found very few. Boston managed to tighten some, but not enough.

That Boston was so effective through the first 40 minutes of Game Six, or that Chicago still couldn't score on the power play, or that as much as the Blackhawks might have figured out Zdeno Chara he suddenly seemed to have some answers of his own, hardly mattered at all in the end. Those are factors that would have to be weighted, carefully considered facts to be used in a logical analysis to apply proper justice. Yes, the Bruins probably should have won Game Six, but justice is at best skewed and most often irrelevant when it comes to an assassination, which is what this felt like – more than a simple elimination, anyway. To hell with Game Seven. Instead, it was two shots, right to the temple.

Indeed, there really was little doubt for much of the evening which of the two was the better team Monday. Boston, with Patrice Bergeron back in the lineup, looked like a team not only prepared to win, but to actually kill to get there. They pounded the Blackhawks all game, registering 35 hits to Chicago's 27. And while that doesn't quite match Boston's Game Five total (a crazy 53), they were well placed and hard. It also meant the Bruins were worrying less about the physical game and finally, after two games of being handily out-jazzed by Chicago, looked to finesse their way to a win. They remembered they can move and started early in getting shots and traffic on Crawford.

And it paid off in a goal early on, care of Chris Kelly, a new standout in the Bruins lineup. But the Blackhawks managed to tie it, off a face-off in the neutral zone that in turn came from a bad call on a phantom Bruins hand pass in the Chicago zone. The Blackhawks won the face-off and everyone watched Jonathan Toews, head apparently still connected properly and capable of many things, dance down the side boards, step toward Tuukka Rask and plonk home the tying goal. Had the entire affair then remained tied 1-1 and Chicago had won in the same manner, this would no doubt be pointed to as the moment of most injustice. The prospect hung that a bad call could decide everything hung in the air as the teams left for the second intermission.

And the third period waited, which fit this series perfectly. They brought the Stanley Cup into the building early in the third, and at the end of a mid-June steam press of a day in Boston, with thunderstorms rolling through, the ice began to drip and pool. And in a series that has been so close, in a game where bounces decide future, the puck began to bounce around like it was traveling across the surface of a pockmarked moon. Still, chances: Paille sliding in front, Rich Peverley on the side, Brent Seabrook in the slot, Chara.

"It was a game decided by a bounce or two in a series that had swung on the same. After Lucic scored to make it 2-1 with 7:49 to play in regulation, it looked as though the pendulum had swung Boston's way," Dave Feschuk writes at the Toronto Star. "But then Bryan Bickell struck, and Bolland's goal followed and the red carpet was being rolled out with the hardware."

Within what seemed like only a heartbeat, Gary Bettman was receiving his annual booing, Patrick Kane walked away with the Conn Smythe and Toews hoisted the Stanley Cup for the Blackhawks for the second time in four seasons. The photos were taken, the on-ice interviews were breathlessly delivered, along with some hugs. A team photo followed and everyone disappeared to the dressing room.

It really felt that quick, and maybe it really was. So fast, you could spell out all the details in a few words, in a tweet or a text message. So fast, you barely saw it. Quick. Swift. Maybe there was justice after all.